Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		2.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Sharpe's Challenge Blu-ray Movie Review

How sharp does Sharpe look on Blu-ray?

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater March 30, 2010

If you’ve ever flipped casually to PBS late at night and found yourself mildly entranced by actor Sean Bean roguishly swaggering through some swashbuckling derring-do, you’re probably at least unwittingly familiar with Sharpe, a long-running series of British made-for-TV movies that follows the exploits of Richard Sharpe, a fictional soldier during the Napoleonic Wars. Between 1993 and 1997, fourteen Sharpe films were made, and after a nearly ten-year hiatus, the much- beloved character was revisited in 2006 for Sharpe’s Challenge, his biggest adventure yet, a sword-swinging spree through British-ruled India. It also marks the series’ high definition debut, which should please Sharpe regulars and may introduce a whole new audience to the square-jawed hero and his impossible adventures. A word of warning, however, for longtime Sharpe fans: Unlike the British DVD version of Sharpe’s Challenge, which contains the complete cut of the film, this Blu-ray release has been whittled down from an epic 138 minutes to a slim 105.

Sean Bean as Richard Sharpe...

The story opens in India in 1803, when then-Sergeant Sharpe (Sean Bean) leads a unit of British troops to Chasalgaon Fort, an East India Trading Company outpost. Expecting to meet up with friendly forces, Sharpe’s soldiers are ambushed by the traitorous Major Dodd (Toby Stephens), a turncoat who has left the King’s army to work for a local rajah warlord. Every man, woman, child, and chicken at the garrison is murdered, all except—you guessed it—Richard Sharpe, who cleverly plays dead whilst Dodd’s minions off the remaining survivors. From here we fast-forward fourteen years, as Sharpe, now a provincial farmer, is summoned to a palatial London estate, where the Duke of Wellington (Hugh Fraser) requests our one-time warrior to return to the Indian colonies to find a missing British agent. Sharpe obliges when he finds out said agent is his old war buddy Patrick Harper (Daragh O’Malley). The two friends find each other quite easily in India—somewhat implausibly—but their reunion is under less than joyous circumstances. Dodd, having risen to the rank of General in young ruler Khande Rao’s (Karan Panthaky) regime, is once again up to no good. This time, he’s kidnapped the winsome Celia Burroughs (Lucy Brown), daughter of the British general who controls the region. Bound by honor and duty, Sharpe and Harper infiltrate Khande Rao’s fortress as spies to see what they can do about getting Celia out of there before she gets raped or worse.

Sharpe’s Challenge is a composite of three of author Bernard Cornwell’s novels— Sharpe’s Tiger, Sharpe’s Triumph, and Sharpe’s Fortress—borrowing storylines from each and reworking them into a single narrative. The set-up is simple and so is the plotting, which unfolds with few surprises. Sharpe and Harper present themselves to Khande Rao as British deserters, learn what they can while snooping around the fortress, and have their loyalties tested by Dodd, who is obviously wary of the new recruits. Along the way, Sharpe is tempted by Khande Rao’s regent, the sexy erstwhile concubine Madhuvanthi (Padma Lakshmi), and is forced to suppress his swordplay abilities when Dodd challenges him to a one-on-one practice match. This is made-for-TV material through and through, a passable but uninteresting swashbuckler elevated only by production quality that squeezes every drop of value out of the on- location scenery and thousands of extras. An entire exterior wall was actually constructed around one face of the real-life fortress where shooting took place, just so the crew could blow it up during the big castle siege that serves as the film’s climax. Since I haven’t seen the full-length version of Sharpe’s Challenge, I can’t comment on what’s been removed in this truncated cut, but I never got the overt sense that I was missing out on something.

Our protagonist’s good-natured insolence and disregard for authority is certainly still here, as Sean Bean slips easily into Sharpe’s well-traveled shoes, even after ten years wandering in the bigger budgeted wilds of Lord of the Rings and Silent Hill. Sharpe is an archetypal character—the lovable cad, the heroic rogue, a man with a “talent for bruising his betters”—and Bean plays him like a scruffy, 19th century Han Solo, brash, cocksure, and ready for trouble. Series regular Darah O’Malley makes a great partner as well, weary and slightly less dashing, but plenty handy in a scrap, especially considering the massive multi-barreled gun that he totes around and clearly isn’t afraid to use. The Sharpe films have always hosted an impressive array of guest stars in the past—Daniel Craig, Brian Cox, Elizabeth Hurley, Emily Mortimer, and Paul Bettany, among other—and though the line-up in Challenge isn’t quite as star- studded, the surrounding roles are all well cast, if not entirely memorable. Padma Lakshmi turns up the heat convincingly, and when she lays into Sharpe with a series of slaps to the face, you can tell she means business. Peter Hugo-Daly is appropriately icky as the gap-toothed sergeant Shadrach Bickerstaff, and Lucy Brown is perfectly winsome as Celia Burroughs. (Though a bit of unnerving lasciviousness creeps into the picture when Dodd has a lackey rip the front of her dress open, spilling her breasts out for the entirety of the rajah’s court to see.) The only loose cannon is Toby Stephens, who’s a bit too hammy in his thankless role as a total tool, a traitor, and a truly heartless bastard. All in all, Sharpe’s Challenge is decent TV entertainment that will appeal to anglophiles and history buffs who don’t mind storytellers playing loose and fast with actual history.

Sharpe's Challenge Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sharpe's Challenge looks decent but rather unremarkable on Blu-ray, with a 1080p, VC- 1 encoded transfer sourced from the film's Super16mm negative. I've seen several 16mm films, like Revanche, that look fantastic in high definition—richly textured, warm, and cinematic—but this Sharpe production looks exactly like what it is: a modestly budgeted made-for-TV movie. With expectations adjusted accordingly, though, most Sharpe fans should be satisfied, especially after years of standard definition PBS broadcasts. Contrast can get a bit hazy at times—especially under the midday sun—but the film's colors are bright and natural. British red coats are especially vibrant, along with gold epaulets and the multi-hued stained glass windows inside the rajah's palace. Clarity, however, is somewhat inconsistent. There are some shots that display an appreciable amount of detail, but others seem to have been given a light DNR scrubbing, rendering the actors' faces with an odd claylike texture. Like I said, though, it's not very consistent. Many scenes have a natural-looking grain structure, but there are times when the grain has been obviously removed. Thankfully, at least, there's been no heavy-handed edge enhancement to make up for the loss of detail. Overall, I'm sure this Blu-ray release of Sharpe's Challenge looks better than its DVD counterpart—and series fans will be glad of the high definition upgrade—but there's there not much to be objectively wowed by here.

Sharpe's Challenge Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's made-for-TV visuals are accompanied by made-for-TV audio, via a lossy and underperforming Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track. There's so much potential for a truly bombastic audio experience here—the roar of cannons, musket fire, clanging swords, the dusty clop-clop of charging horses—but it all goes woefully underdeveloped in a front-heavy mix that lacks real dynamic punch. There are several big explosions in the film, but they all sound flat and restrained, as if heard from far away. Surround channel movements are practically non-existent—I kept waiting to hear rockets zipping to and fro, to no avail—but you will hear some occasional outdoorsy ambience in the rears, along with the outdated score. (Seriously, can someone tell me what's up with the anachronistic guitar solo during the theme song?) Dialogue is easily discernable, but the actors' voices occasionally suffer from a slightly muffled quality. I can't say how much the inclusion of a lossless track would've improved on matters, but I can say that the mix we have here is workmanlike and bland.

Sharpe's Challenge Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Commentary Tracks
The disc includes two informative tracks that should be of interest to longtime Sharpe fans, one with Sean Bean & Daragh O'Malley, and another with director Tom Clegg.

Behind the Scenes (SD, 47:09)
"There are many intimate moments and revealing interviews," says the unnamed narrator, introducing this comprehensive making-of documentary, which takes us on location in India for a revealing look at just about every aspect of the production. Includes interviews with author Bernard Cornwell, director Tom Glegg, actor Sean Bean, and many others.

Cut Scenes and Outtakes (SD, 15:56)
Includes about a dozen excised scenes and few flubbed lines.

Creating the HD Master (1080i, 11:52)
If you've ever been curious about how a negative gets transferred to high definition video, this featurette is like a 101 class in mastering, as senior colorist Dan Coles explains the process of cleaning, grading, transferring, and color correcting the film. In the second half, the program's visual effects supervisor explains how the advent of high definition required his team to rethink how they achieved certain effects.

Photo Gallery (1080p, 1:45)

Sharpe's Challenge Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The only thing keeping me from recommending this Blu-ray release to Sharpe fans— besides the bummer of a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track—is the fact that we're getting a pared down version of the film here. Still, there's plenty of sword clanging action and exotic adventure to be found, even if none of it is particularly memorable or original. Be on the lookout for our review of the series' 2008 entry, Sharp's Peril, in the next day or two.